ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: For a look at the day on the markets, I spoke earlier to stockbroker Marcus Padley.

Marcus Padley, the market did pretty well today, given the lead from Wall Street, with a bit of help from the banks.

MARCUS PADLEY, PATERSONS SECURITIES: Yes, market up 28 I think in the end on the back of Wall Street that was down, and the banks, most of them were up sort of one to two per cent or so. The whole bank sector's had a fantastic run. As we've heard in the last couple of weeks, a couple of major brokers upgraded the sector. And I think as everybody's bought into the economic and financial crisis recovery, the money that flows into Australia from international funds comes into the biggest stocks. It's certainly gone into the bank sector. They're suddenly a wave of comfort about the Australian market and about banks again, and suddenly people are believing the numbers. They all look like they're offering value. So, we've also got the CBA results tomorrow. We're really looking, as per the Macquarie AGM the other day, for a no-disasters result, and if it's OK, you'll find that the whole bank sector gets another little confidence lift.

ALI MOORE: If we look at resources, Fortescue Metals is making progress with its negotiations for new Chinese funding. How did the stock go today?

MARCUS PADLEY: Well, it was down over five per cent yesterday. At one point today, it was down over five per cent as well. And then, later on, it was up over five per cent, so we had a 10 per cent turnaround and it's closed up 1.2 per cent. The CIC possible investment in Fortescue obviously what's driven it from the lows today. But it's the typical story with Fortescue: they had results yesterday, the broker research this morning, it had two sell recommendations, two hold recommendations - that's as good as we could get, and most of the target prices are well under the current share price. It's that old debate of Fortescue not looking like it's good value, but the share price keeps popping on one story or another to do with the Chinese. So, that's the current theme, but the last 24 hours has been about results, really, and they weren't terribly dazzling.

ALI MOORE: You talk about share prices "popping"; Flight Centre shares jumped 22 per cent today, and that was on a significantly brighter outlook for the months ahead.

MARCUS PADLEY: Yes, they were up 21 per cent or so. They announced results for 2009 much in line with their own guidance. But of a messy result, actually. But what people have really latched onto is their guidance for 2010, when they're talking about making $125, $135 million against most analysts around $100 million. And they're saying that the whole travel industry has stabilised and it's a cyclical sector. The sector drops a lot when the economy goes down, and it goes up pretty quickly when the economy recovers and that's obviously what people are latching onto. And you'll notice Qantas and Virgin Blue both had very good days, up I think four and five per cent today as they react to the Flight Centre vibe that things are getting better in that industry.

ALI MOORE: What about the media sector? Some Meryl Lynch research is suggesting the advertising market might have bottomed.

MARCUS PADLEY: Yes, we had a very good performance today from the print media, from WA news from Fairfax, up 4.4 and 5.2 per cent. And, again, it's one of these a cyclical sectors. And if Merrill Lynch are telling us that the ad market has bottomed, then the earnings recovery for these sort of stocks can be very fast indeed. And we're seeing other cyclical sectors perform well as well at the moment. For instance, Brambles is up 4.8 per cent today. You know, Flight Centre telling us the travel industry has recovered. All these sectors are being buoyed on the hope of economic recovery and they've all fallen so far. They're coming back pretty quickly. So, at the end of the day, everyone wants to know whether this economic recovery is real or imagined. We won't know that for a while, but for the moment, we're quite enjoying imagining it.